


What's In A Name?

by Tequila_Mockingbird



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 22:36:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tequila_Mockingbird/pseuds/Tequila_Mockingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Petunia stopped and looked back… she… seemed to teeter on the edge of speech…" What had she wanted to say, before leaving her sister's son forever?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In A Name?

**Author's Note:**

> Petunia's thoughts in her moment of hesitation, before leaving Harry behind at the beginning of Deathly Hallows.

You've always known that lilies were prettier. Even the meaning was prettier. Lilies meant 'beauty', 'maiden charms', and 'purity'. Petunias meant 'resentment'. How perfectly fitting. There had been petunias, at the wedding. Lots and lots and lots of petunias. No lilies. Petunias are closely related to tobacco, potatoes, and tomatoes. Lovely. There are hundreds of different breeds of lilies, grown around the globe for thousands of different decorative and edible purposes. Lilies are distantly related to tulips.

If parents really want to name their daughters after flowers, there are thousands of choices. Daisy. Ianthe. Rose. Delphine. Camellia. Peony. Lantana. Violet. Columbine. Alyssa. Dahlia. Heather. Iris. Marigold. Pansy. Poppy. Why Lily? Why Petunia?

If parents really cared about their children, they would be more careful about the company that their children kept. If only you could have stopped it, back when that strange, horrible boy started hanging about, poisoning Lily's mind, lying to her and twisting her until you could hardly recognize your little sister as the same one who'd looked up at you with big trusting eyes from her bassinet. If only you'd realized that he was a freak, that he was making your sister into a freak just like him, that they would be happy and freakish together and leave you behind. Not that you cared. Really. Truly. Not that you wanted it. Because you didn't. Didn't, didn't, didn't. You're sure. Almost.

If your parents really cared, they wouldn't have let Lily go off to that freak school where they taught people things that shouldn't be taught. And then Lily would never have met that Potter boy (and how dared Mum and Dad prefer him to Vernon?) and never would have had that brat of a child and never would have gone and gotten herself killed. Served her right. If she'd come home, after mum had her stroke, if she'd been there when you had to deal with the funeral, and selling the house, and the taxes and the will. But no. She couldn't come, she said—she was in hiding. Hiding? From what? If she'd given up the stupid freakish magic, she wouldn't need to hide. And everything would have been normal. And everything would have been the way it always was—Lily and Petunia. Petunia and Lily. Together forever…

When you're young, everything seems so much simpler. So much easier. And then all of a sudden you're married and you have a son and it's not so easy when your sister tells you she wants you to be the godmother. You're an orphan now, and a married woman. Petunia Evans no longer: Mrs. Vernon Dursley now. And you tell her to get out—to stay out. And she looks at you and smiles in the way she always did—like she knows everything you're thinking. And then seventeen months later you open the door and there's a baby on the porch and the letter he's holding says she's dead and all you can think is that the last thing you said to her was, "don't every speak to me again" and the irony is dreadful, isn't it?

So you raise him. It's what she would have wanted, what she almost (but not really, never really, never officially, never properly) asked you to do. You take him in and send him to school and treat him like a normal boy but he's a freak, just like she was, and it comes out. But every time Vernon says "we have to get rid of him" for some reason you can't understand you say no. Until the boy's six and he finally pushes you too far and you decide that's it, you're washing your hands of him, and a red letter comes and screams at you while Vernon's at work. And it knows everything you wish nobody ever found out—it knows about the letter you sent to That School begging to be magical, and the fact that you were going to invite Lily to the wedding but never sent the invitation, and it's telling you you'll regret it. It says "I KNOW YOU, PETUNIA EVANS," and it terrifies you. And when Vernon comes home you say "the boy stays". Just that, but he knows that you don't argue with him unless there's a good reason.

You're on tenterhooks, that whole summer, because you remember damn well when Lily got that letter, it was the summer before she turned eleven, the summer of 1970. And now it's the summer of 1991 and you know what's coming. And sure enough it does, and everything (well, almost everything) comes out and the boy knows. And sure enough, he goes and when he comes back he's as strange as she ever was, and you lock him up but he escapes. And it's as if he's trying to ruin the life you've made for yourself, just like Lily did. And you wonder, is that a genetic trait, 'ruining Petunia Dursley's life'? Is it bred into him, like that freaky magic?

And it's the same deal, summer after summer: he's a freak and there's nothing you can do about it. And he embarrasses you in front of Marge (you've always hated that woman, and it's almost worth it to see her like that) and nearly gets Dudders killed (and that's the one way to make your life pure hell—how could he guess?) and then the man with the voice like that horrible letter comes and then finally, you're going to be rid of him. This is it. He "comes of age." He's gone. And now you're the one who's going into hiding, and you can't help but remember that it didn't help Lily, now did it? But it's too late for that. You're leaving, you and your husband and your child (such a good boy, so forgiving and clever and wonderful and normal, thank God), and you're walking out the door—finally done. Finished with that brat and all the memories he carries. And then, for no reason you can think of, you pause.

Do you tell him? Tell him that you're sorry, that it's for the best, that you never stopped loving her, not even for an instant? Do you tell him about all the times when you've wondered whether it was worth it, when you've looked at your perfect home and perfect family and perfect life and felt sick? All the times when you would dream about magic and wake up sobbing? Do you tell him that he has her eyes, exactly, precisely her eyes, and they used to glow when she thought about that Potter boy—and do you tell him you know damn well that your eyes couldn't glow if you tried? To you tell him that sometimes, early in the morning or late at night—only when you're tired—you look at him out of the corner of your eyes and catch his eyes and they're her eyes. At that stings so badly, hurts so much when you can remember those eyes so well even without the goddamn reminder. And now he's leaving. Do you wish him good luck?

What do you say when you want to say that you're sorry? But you can't, can you? You've tried, once or twice, from time to time over the years you've meant to sit down and talk to the boy. But you didn't, and it's too late now and if there's one thing you know it is that once it's too late, it's too late.

So you say nothing. You just nod. And you hope that someday, he'll understand. That strange boy, the one with her eyes and her magic.

When you get to the back of the car with that odd man and Dudley (and you hope to high heaven he won't… contaminate your son… or anything horrid like that), and before he starts the car Vernon takes a moment to catch your eyes in the rear-view and nod. Just a second, but you both know what he means. And for an instant, you're nineteen again and so excited you can barely breathe, and in love with him because he's so safe and comfortable and normal. And then you're back in a car, running away from your life because of your sister's boy, and you take a deep breath. You'll be alright. You nod to Vernon and he nods back, and smiles. You'll all be alright.

Petunia also means 'your presence soothes me'.


End file.
